kfm

Jun

2011

Making Your Maintenance or Maintenance Supervisor Job Much Easier

Making Your Job Much Easier

1) Line up Quality Vendors. Talk is cheap but quality is priceless. Watch for vendors that care and are into what they do. Craftsmanship may seem a lost art but it does still exist.

2) Keep prices competitive. Paying more doesn’t mean you will get a better job anymore. Once upon a time it did. It still can but it is rare.

3) Encourage their performance. When you do find quality, value their work with more work and appropriate pay. Recognize extra efforts. Give them opportunities to bid for other jobs.

4) They must understand that results are not an option. We must understand that results are not an option. Our employers certainly understand that results are not an option. Our customers hope that results are not an option.

5) Line up jobs and line up bids. List all the most common repairs needed at your property and develop plans of action. Recognize the jobs that will cost you much less time, effort and money, to do in house. Determine which jobs will save you the most time, energy, and money to vend out. Make sure you are getting apples to apples bids. The more you understand about needed repairs, the easier time you will have developing a plan. The better plans you develop the easier you can communicate it to your vendors. The better you communicate the better chance your vendors will have of meeting your expectations.

6) Keep a running wish list for capital improvements.

7) Research better solutions for the problems that plague you. Develop a jig if possible or a template to make jobs that must be repeated much easier.

8) Keep a running list of supplies and parts needed. This way when you do order parts and supplies, you don’t forget anything.

9) Develop and Implement the best preventative maintenance program you can. When you prevent things from going wrong in bulk, life becomes so much easier. Developing an understanding of the challenges at your property and building up solutions will save you countless headaches.

Experience can be tough but when you learn from it difficulty will be less on in. Think strategically. Recycle your tough experiences into hitting first where it counts.

~~~ Gain Some Nice Ground ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~ Kung Fu Maintenance ~~~~~~~~~~~

May

2011

Getting Vertical ~ Repairing Vertical Blinds

Let us say you go to open your vertical blinds and oh no, the blinds won’t open. The first thing to check for is any blind slats that are out of line with the others. Look for any that are overlapping the others the wrong way and push the top corner to set it the right way. This is the most often needed repair for vertical blinds. Blinds often get out of alignment due to wind, people, pets, vacuums, chairs etc…

A bigger problem is when one of the gears gets turned out of step with the other gears. The repair is performed by turning the stem the right way. Sometimes you can grab the stem and turn it with your hand. Take care not to bend the slat itself or it may break. Often you will need or want to remove the slat. That makes it easier to grab the stem with a pair of pliers and then pop it over.

This repair sometimes causes a gear tooth to break. Replacing stem gears is fairly easy and I will try to make a video for that repair in the future. I cover all of these repairs and much more in my book, Kung Fu Maintenance. I have another video at present titled The Master Blind Gear. I hope you like it and that it serves you well. It covers (as you probably guessed) how to replace a stripped master blind gear controller for vertical blinds.

Be extra careful when working with blinds and appliances as the metal is often unfinished metal and very sharp. I have given blood numerous times. A little precaution makes for a better day.

~~~ Get Vertical ~~~ Stay Above Horizontal ~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kung Fu Maintenance ~~~~~~~~~~

May

2011

KFM Reasonings to Choose Dupont ISCEON R-438A Over R-410A

While R410A air conditioning puts out more cooling BTU’s it often uses more electrical energy in the short and/or long run.

R410A equipment often has a higher amp draw requiring wiring upgrades, larger breakers, larger wires, larger electrical whips, and fuses etc…

Often evaporator coils and line sets need to be replaced to accommodate the higher pressures that R410a uses.

ISCEON® MO99™ (alternatively called R-438A) retrofit has far less of an environmental impact.

R-22 system does not need to be flushed when retro fitting to ISCEON MO99. For R-410A retrofit, system must be flushed and oil changed.

For ISCEON MO99 retrofit, oil does not need to be replaced. R-410A uses a different oil type (poe (polyester) oil) that will not mix right with R-22’s oil type (mineral oil) and so oil must be changed.

ISCEON MO99 can be used with existing R-22 condensors and evaporators as long as Schrader valves and or seals are replaced. (ISCEON MO99 refrigerant causes seals that have been using R-22 to shrink.) R-410A uses higher pressures and should not be used with R-22 compressors so whole condensers are usually replaced, seals and all.

ISCEON M099 has a lower operating temperature at the compressor and is slightly easier on the compressor the heart of the air condition system.
Both R410A and ISCEON MO99 are not going to be phased out thru the Montreal Protocol like R-22 in 2020.

ISCEON M099 does not damage the ozone layer. (At least not like cows do! Or R-22)

Of course all of this is debatable and that should be interesting so let’s get at it. If you have some ideas why you think R-410A (or another refrigerant) is the way to go I would love to hear them. Alternatively, if you have any more points about the benefits of ISCEON MO99 (R438A) that would be cool. Share your experiences here on The KFM Blog as a response. If I think they are worthy I will post them as long as things are kept clean. Fair Enough?

~~~ Keep it Cool ~ Keep It Real ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~ Kung Fu Maintenance ~~~~~

May

2011

Increasing Your Balance ~ Weighting out a Ceiling Fan Wobble

This is my eleventh video. It was the first Kung Fu Maintenance video I used my voice on. To my surprise it has gotten far more hits than any of my others. This is true even though (among my vids) it is one of the most disliked uploaded videos. Perhaps for the noise (voice) (music) but I think more than anything for the fact that this repair takes so much patience. It is a tried and true method and I have done it many times. It is not my favorite repair either but it normally works, unless the fan is beyond balancing. I have had many dislikes over the brand of this particular fan. Also I think it gets many dislikes because there are some who think it is not worth it to balance a fan (or believe it impossible) and would rather buy a new one. This is fine. (You can make pizza, if you have the dough( and sauce, and cheese etc. . ). What follows is for the savers.

First clean the fan. Then tighten up all the screws. Tighten the fan blade screws and especially the down rod set screws where the down rod goes into the fan top. Often times this is enough to fix the wobble. Sometimes you can adjust the position of the light kit or the position of the down rod socket by pushing the whole fan up and turning a little bit (with power off of course). Try several different positions to see if you can rid the wobble.

If those attempts don’t rid your wobble than you will need a fan balancing kit. They are sold at most hardware stores or you can order one from my store Kung Fu Maintenance Supply and Appliance. They usually have instructions to follow which normally involve the following.

Clip the fan blade weight clip to the back edge of a fan blade either on the very end center or in the middle at the back of the blade. Turn the fan on and note if it wobbles more or less. Note the blade you started with than do the same on each of the other fan blades to determine which one gives you the least amount of wobble. This takes a lot of patience as you have to let the fan blades stop each time so no one gets hurt.

Next clip the fan weight in the center at the back of the fan blade with the least wobble. Slide the clip two inches toward the fan center and check the wobble. Than slide the clip four inch away from the center of the fan blade. Whichever direction towards the center or further away gives you the least wobble continue checking for the least wobble in two inch increments until you determine the best spot for least wobble. This is where you will stick one of the fan weights clean the spot on the center top of the fan blade really well. This way the weight doesn’t go flying off later (It’s all fun and games till someone gets hurt). Remove the plastic covering the adhesive and press it down top center of the fan blade directly in line with your fan weight clip.

Now you can remove the fan weight clip and check for wobbling. All set you’re all done but if there is still some wobble sometimes it takes more than one weight. This is why the weight kit usually comes with two or three weights. Repeat the entire process again with the second and if necessary the third weight. Yes it is understandable that this video gets some dislikes. I could even sometimes dislike it myself. It puts a real tester on ADD and caffeinated people .

~~~Increasing your Balance~~~

~~~~~~~~~~Kung Fu Maintenance~~~~~~~~~~~